Without You
by hoydenish
Summary: A brooding, angsty vignette about love not being enough. Those in search of happy endings need not apply. Inspired by the song Without You, by Lapalux, which is recommended but not mandatory accompaniment.


Without You

He stood beside the gritty window of his Southbank flat, watching with grim satisfaction as the rain washed the nighttime streets. There were places in the world that begged for certain kinds of weather. Sydney was blinding sunlight and freshets of ocean air. Chicago was dirty snow and icy blasts off the lake. Washington was the moist air of springtime, the soft breeze loosening cherry blossoms and ruffling her hair …

He stopped his thoughts with another gulp of scotch.

London was relentless rain. Not the skin-soaking rain of the tropics, nor the near-vapour of the Pacific Northwest, but steady, stubborn rain that thwarted all attempts to escape it unharassed. The London weather pleased him, especially at night. It turned the city the colour of steel wool. Gunmetal grey. It suited his mood.

He had been in England for the past five months, on secondment to MI-6. His assignments had been challenging, and he felt his old self leeching slowly back, chilling the hidden places that had only recently thawed. His instincts were razor sharp again, reactions held tight as a tripwire. Granted, he wasn't as fast or as limber as he'd once been, but a steady diet of coffee, hard alcohol and brutally long days had evaporated any signs of impending middle age. Contentment had made him soft. He was no longer content.

Initially, he'd sought out female company as well, in his quest to regain his former life. Women willing to share his bed for an hour or two without asking too many questions, without requiring anything more complicated than what his body could deliver and cab fare home. But it became too difficult, carefully selecting his companion for the evening on the basis of what she was not. Not tall, or lithe. Not brunette, or doe-eyed. She couldn't draw out his name like a benediction, or wrap herself around him as though her limbs alone held him together in one piece. Soon, he'd given up. Now if he called out her name upon release, there was no-one there to hear but his troubled conscience.

It was the solitude that did him in. The irony was not lost on him, since it was solitude that he professed to be seeking when he left. Time alone to regroup and gather his thoughts. To figure out who he still was, and who he could or could not become. But on nights such as this one, he was haunted by thoughts of her that sucked him in and pulled him under, holding him tight in their grip.

She hadn't been surprised, when he'd finally found the nerve to tell her he was leaving. It stung, that she'd apparently been waiting for him to leave her all along. But she understood him better than he did himself.

"Do what you have to do, Lee. If you think that London will help you find yourself again, then go."

For weeks beforehand, he had been floundering, drowning in the gap that opened up between his new life and his old. He had tried to protect her from his struggles, with little success. He'd known for some time that his sense of himself was getting lost in the tangle of their relationship. Certainly his habit of meeting, bedding and discarding women was gone, and without regret. The woman who he had chosen to share his bed exclusively emptied him of all need for variety. But there were other aspects of his bachelor existence that he had been homesick for: the rush of playing out his day as the cards were dealt to him, the freedom to be careless with his safety, the unchained relief of nobody else's feelings to consider but his own. In the first heady rush of their time together as lovers, it had felt like a fair trade, but with time, he started to wonder. Scarecrow was a persona he knew well, a role he'd been playing for so long that it was second nature. He was arrogant and flirtatious, duty-bound, hot-headed but cold-blooded, charming yet aloof. But who the hell was Lee Stetson? The longer he considered the question, the less satisfactory the answers became.

She'd driven him to the airport, standing on the curb watching him gather his bags. Finally, there was nothing left to do but look into her eyes one last time. She'd placed a trembling hand over his heart, and her words were forever engraved there.

"I don't think you'll ever let yourself believe that I love you for exactly who you are, and not for what you are to me."

It was the first time either of them had mentioned love, and he opened his mouth, feeling obligated to return the sentiment, but she halted his words with a quick shake of her head.

"How could you possibly love me? You have to learn how to forgive yourself first."

And just like that, she had laid bare the root of his conflict. He felt naked, standing there in the chill autumn light, like his skin had been flayed away by her words, leaving nothing but the residue of years spent hiding from this moment. She stood on tiptoe to kiss the corner of his mouth, and then turned quickly to leave.

That had been October, and now it was February. Besides the satisfaction of having confirmed that he was still at the peak of his game workwise, and the realization that the only woman whose body felt like home he had abandoned on the other side of the Atlantic, he didn't have much to show for his weeks of soul searching. He kept coming back to her words; that she didn't love him for what he was to her. It would have been so much easier if she'd asked him to be somebody else, expected him to change for her. If she had simply demanded that he take on the role of a suburban soccer dad, he could have tried, failed, and then felt justified in moving on. But her refusal to define who he needed to be in order to earn his place in her life had left him without mooring or point of reference, an unfamiliar feeling that his nature rebelled against.

Truth be told, he wasn't inclined towards introspection. He'd told himself that going to London would give him the opportunity to think, but doing came much more naturally than thinking, and thus he'd recaptured his former equilibrium through action. With the exception of some mild complaint by his aging body, it had been easy. Being Scarecrow was easy. Relearning how to be Lee Stetson in the context of a committed relationship with a woman who brought considerable entanglements along with her love was hard. He wondered when he'd begun making life decisions on the basis of degree of difficulty, rather than the degree to which they would bring him the comfort and security he was never quite certain he deserved.

Maybe soul searching wasn't required. He knew, with the clarity of having always known, why he had left. Why he had run. It wasn't lost freedom. It wasn't little league, or station wagons, or quiet nights spent watching TV. It wasn't monogamy, nor any threat to his fortress of self-determination. If he'd found the words to ask, she would have accommodated any reasonable request he made.

The phone was in his hand and he was dialing before he considered the late hour, even with the six hour time difference. Five, six, seven tinny long distance rings, and he was prepared to hang up when she answered. He started without preamble.

"I didn't want you to leave me."

With no hesitation, her answer. His answer. The only reason he needed to pack his things and fly home.

"I didn't want to leave you."


End file.
